love falls
as fast as
bread crumbs
quickly escaping
a dinner table

love quickly
ends as soon
as it begins
they end with
an inaudible thud

as our hearts break as
it hits the unforgiving pavement


i guess it can be seen
as some sort
of experiment
that is left uncontrolled
foreign & unknown

it seeps
through our veins
it invades our organs
eats our souls

destroys our bodies

it is our silent killer
destroying us by
making us feel whole

I left
immaculately folded tan chino pants
cuffed and disheveled
atop the department store rack
in the Young Men’s section.

They were too big at the waist,
letting me swim laps in them,
stretching out the front with a thumb and forefinger
looking like a successful weight loss ad.

Atop the rack they sat,
cuffed and disheveled,
amongst immaculately folded
tan chino pants
its kin
and they looked human.

Something about them,
factory made, dime a dozen,
not on sale,
but with the spectral imprint
of spaces and wrinkles where legs had been
amongst all those patient, forlorn folds
gave humanity
to the anomaly.

hurry boy, don't doze
etch the words before they perish
as the situation once again alters
coiling around your wrist
tugging you to that place
sleep every moment
dwelling in the blankets
soaking in that stale security
false impressions attached/removed
like velcro ripping in the silence
masks on masks on masks on masks on masks on
could spend days pruning in the seabed of potential
while the salt collects on my eyelashes and the days vanish like eons
there are days where the stillness in me quakes my feet
into the fervor of rabbit under moving tire and
I pound the walls for a train to pass and shake the foundation
but the tracks are too far away now, and the stillness creeps
dust collects on the fan blades, then the plastic grating, then the intake
the thing rattles all night now; loose ***** in the front
hardly a substitute for that rumble in your dreams
from an archer daniel's car rushing by at four
the bed is a lot better at this place though
king size, though I'd rather be in california
where the water is warm and the memories catch your falls
I've never been there and the idea is always better than the outcome
kicking sand like a beach bully *** flexing in strut
sun burns within seconds of shirtless self-reveals
the salt is being washed off of the cars
from an illinois winter that the plow conquered to the dismay of
the kids down the block who still waited
at dawn for the diesel yellow groan
the heat is swelling in the season
chirps return with the sting
of rolled up passenger windows
magnifying the clean white light
ninety-eight million miles marched
to a single point on a pale dot
burning that poor gal's cheek
but the medicinal effects
of the smooch are more than known
to generations of the summer awakened,
free-falling, reality born.
here we are again with showers and flowers,
here we are again with cyclones in the alley,
here we are again with cocoons and buffoons,
here we are again with milk in the valley.
this heart pumps as the snow goes rising
to the funnels and pillars east-stretched
where the baby boomers buy plots and
the love begins to reach for an even share.